a. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing boiled noodles and, more particularly to an apparatus for manufacturing a predetermined number of meals of noodles.
b. Prior Art
Noodles are generally manufactured by a hand-made manufacturing method and by a noodle manufacturing machine. In the prior art method and apparatus for manufacturing a hand-made noodle, the following steps are carried out:
mixing and kneading a mixture of wheat flour and about forty-five percent of water containing a salt to form a noodle substrate, producing an elasticity of the substrate by means of kneading the noodle substrate, rolling the noodle substrate, aging the substrate of the noodle, pressing and expanding the substrate by scattering a wheat flour, folding up after pressing, and slicing and cutting the substrate to form raw noodle elements.
Accordingly, the prior art hand-made noodle manufacturing method required at least several hours in order to obtain the raw noodle elements as well as twelve hours in preparation the previous day and further required fifteen to twenty minutes in order to boil the raw noodle elements. When the noodle is made by the prior art noodle manufacturing machine, twenty five minutes was required to boil the raw noodle elements, because the quantity of the water to be added to the grain flour is less than that used in the hand-made noodle, and higher pressing must be applied to the substrate of noodle in comparison with the hand-made manufacturing method.
Although the manufacturing time is shortened by the noodle manufacturing machine, the prior art noodle manufacturing method and apparatus had the following disadvantages: the installing area and space must be large; a corner of the noodle was removed from the noodle element as well as the noodle element was melted since a long boiling time interval was necessiated; and that taste of the noodles suffered due to the half boiling of the noodles.
It is known that noodles are most delicious immediately after boiling of the noodles. From the above described noodle manufacturing and boiling conditions of the prior art method and apparatus, shops for selling buckwheats and noodles usually manufactured and boiled the vermicelli before opening the shop in accordance with the estimated demand of the customers and offered the noodles according to the order of each customer during business hours. It was, accordingly, impossible to serve the most delicious noodles to the customer immediately after boiling of the noodles, as well as it was inevitable to generate waste such as the unsold noodles.
The vermicelli in the form of a dried noodle, a macaroni or the like is manufactured by a noodle belt cutting out manufacturing method or a pressure applying and pushing method and drying process, the good maintenance can be obtained however the long boiling time duration is required. The vermicelli is stored from the boiled condition and accordingly it is impossible to provide a delicious noodle immediately after boiling up. The waiting time of the customer becomes long and waste due to excess preparation of noodles can not be eliminated.
Furthermore, in the general shop such as a buckwheat shop, a customer visiting the shop may order different kinds of Japanese noodle or Chinese-style noodle. Even when the customer orders the Japanese noodle, an old person orders the soft boiled noodle, and a young man orders hard boiled noodle. It is, however, impossible to respond to the various orders, because the about ten meals of the vermicelli are boiled by employing a boiling basket in the shop. This is the same in the Italian style shop selling the macaroni and the spaghetti and the Chinese-style shop selling the Chinese-style vermicelli.
It is, further, well known that the hand-made buckwheat, the hand-made Japanese noodle and the Chinese-style noodle are more delicious than those manufactured by machine. It is, however, very hard to master the technique for fabricating delicious noodles, as well as much labor is required.